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Forum:Image use policy
I'm starting to see some abuses of the image uploading feature that exists on this wiki. What I'd like to see is some sort of feedback in terms of perhaps formalizing what is considered acceptable use on this wiki, and I have a few thoughts on the topic. What I'm proposing is to set up a formal policy page about acceptable images, and to come to a consensus about what limits we can put here. These are my thoughts on the topic, and I'll try to clean it up in a neat and tidy document later one.... let's just be informal for the moment and talk about your pet peeves of things you hate, or perhaps what we'd like to see more of on this wiki. Keep in mind that this wiki is about Backyard monsters. Images which are completely unrelated to the topic of this wiki is something that generally should go, although an "avatar" image or a very limited number of images for use on your user page can be considered somewhat acceptable. If images completely unrelated to BYM appear and simply aren't used, they will be deleted. "Excessive" number of images on your user page are also subject to culling if that is the only place they are used. I don't have a problem with somebody making a gallery of everything on the wiki... just don't go uploading a bunch of stuff to make that gallery too, and don't make it a gallery of World of Warcraft images as well. Those belong on other wikis and not here. Anything which can be offensive is also going to be deleted immediately. I don't need to spell it out, and frankly the decision if it is offensive is up to the admin on hand at the time. That is why they are "trusted users", to make that sort of judgement. Obviously images are needed and very useful for the articles themselves, and having examples of "buildings in action" are not only useful but encouraged. If there is a new building, monster, or feature in the game, take a screen shot, crop the image (as needed), and upload those images. And by all means add that into appropriate articles. Documenting wild monster tribes is something that I think would be very useful and something I would like to see more of on this wiki as well. Take a screen shot of the WMT bases and try to make some reasonable guesses as to the levels of the various buildings and note how many of them that there are. Indeed it would make for an excellent source of new articles to describe how to defeat each kind of base, or to show the WMT progressions. Which gets me to the next point: duplicate images. It is already policy that you don't go uploading stuff that already exists. I don't need to say more about this. Snapshots of your own base, on the other hand, is something that I find a little more tricky. If you want to post a snapshot of your current base and post it on your user page, I don't see a problem with that. It is related to BYM and if you want to thump your chest thinking you have some bad ass base design, go ahead and show the world. Even describe some of the "features" of that base design and why you think it is so awesome.... on your user page. I do think this can get out of hand though, and I think there are far too many layout images. You don't need to take a snapshot of everybody in your alliance, or everybody who shows up on your server. If you are using the base snap shot as an example of what to do or what not to do (like a really awful box design for a base) and it is genuinely being used in an article, go ahead and use the image. But let's be intelligent here. I also appreciate user generated original artwork related to the game. On this I'd like some more feedback though, and I'd like to insist that it really is something you have personally created and not something you've copied from another website... or at the very least you have received permission to upload those images to this wiki. Copyright is a big deal, and we will deal with Kixeye in terms of copying elements of their game to document BYM... for what is essentially a massive sales brochure for Kixeye anyway. Kixeye gets their benefit as we are essentially promoting the game that we love to play, but that doesn't mean we can go and copy other random stuff. If you are an aspiring artist, by all means I'd love to see your work! But please give attribution, and if I can find that image found elsewhere and it has been plagiarized (aka you claimed you made the image, but it in fact made by somebody else), I will be merciless and not just delete the images but block the user who uploaded the images as well. Perhaps giving some time to the user to explain themselves, but I won't be happy about it until they apologize in a hurry. Attribution can be simply a link to where you got the image. Anyway, I've done some cleanup of the image database for this wiki, and I'd like to do more... but I'd like some feedback before I go further. If you are reading this, please comment... I really do want to know your opinion on this issue. -Robert Horning 14:59, January 30, 2012 (UTC) Also, please do not take pictures from the other BYM Wiki. Thanks. [[User Talk:DarkusAlpha|Drullkus Industries. "Abusing infinity to new levels."]] 06:21, January 31, 2012 (UTC) : Fair use is fair use. I should also note that you look carefully at the official "terms of service" and read up a bit on the "Creative Commons" license that Wikia uses. I don't want to fight you on this, and I agree that images which have been copyrighted by you as original artwork certainly should not be copied without your permission. Besides, I don't think we need much of anything from "the other wiki", but you don't need to be paranoid about it. To illustrate a game concept for artwork and images which are copyrighted by Kixeye is not something you can really stop though. We'll try to play nice. --Robert Horning 16:48, January 31, 2012 (UTC)